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Palaeontology

Saskatchewan's fossil record dates back over 400 million years. The last 100 million years are particularly well documented in sediments in the southern half of the province.

These sediments record several stages of Saskatchewan's development:

  • the latter portion of the age of dinosaurs during which much of the province was covered by a shallow inland sea;
  • much of the post-dinosaur era during which mammals became the dominant land vertebrates;
  • and animal life during the recent ice ages.

Fossils include marine reptiles, dinosaurs, mammals ranging in size from shrews to mammoths, birds, fish and plants. From these remains palaeontologists, both at the Museum and elsewhere, are slowly piecing together a picture of how environments, plants and animals evolved over this time period. Our fossils are digitized but they are not currently available online.


If you have any inquiries regarding our fossils, please contact
✉ Curator of Palaeontology | Dr. Ryan McKellar

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The Royal Saskatchewan Museum and T.rex Discovery Centre are situated on Treaty 4 territory, the ancestral and traditional territory of the Cree, Saulteaux, Dakota, Nakota, Lakota and homeland of the Métis Nation. We acknowledge the land in an act of reconciliation to those whose traditional territories we are on.